Recently in movies Category

it's summer movie season again
and this year i've vowed to keep up with all the new good stuff
even as i ask myself why

take for instance two that i saw in the past week

iron man
at a pretty good stadium-seat theater
dead center

and

cloverfield
in a dark room
in front of my big goddamn tv

these are two different movies and this is wholly separate from the relative merits of either
but i do know that despite the fact that i'd occasionally open my lappy
to check on the sox
i forgot i was on my couch a lot more often
than i forgot i was in the theater

so whatever it is that keeps us going to the theaters
i don't think it's the technology anymore

as for the movies
i've seen lately

southland tales
crammed full of weird shit and exploding with ideas
feels like i do when i drink too much coffee
crashingly unsubtle and not what i can truthfully call
good
but extremely fascinating
i had to watch it twice

harold and kumar escape from guantanamo bay
needed more nph and the funniest scene might have been in the trailer
but that doesn't by any means mean it wasn't awesome

iron man
now the world knows that engineers can be superheroes too
not just journalists
and the idle rich
and what would happen if the dude went corporate

cloverfield
you can question the plausibility of the characters' actions and motivations all day
but it's a hell of a lot more fun not to
as a document of something that hasn't happened
it succeeds in every way

it sounds awfully pretentious to say i have a favorite photographer, but i totally dig (and i’ve mentioned this before) edward burtynsky’s work since i saw it in a gallery in san diego a few years ago. suz would probably say that i like it because it’s the apotheosis of all the idiosyncrasies she accuses me of (which is to say, excessive use of lines, a love of large scale, and flashes of bright color), and maybe she’s right, but at the same time, i’m not the only one, either.

so i watched manufactured landscapes last night, and was really intrigued by it; i wondered how a movie about photography would really work, but it seemed to be to be more of a framework for a few parallel commentaries, as if the filmmaker just kept running into burtynsky while happening to make a movie about the same stuff. for one, it’s really ballsy to put one’s film up for direct, immediate comparison with the work of an acclaimed photographer, and to the immense credit of the filmmaker for coming up with images of her own that stand up.

the other thing that was interesting about it was to see the far far end of the work i do—manufacturing. it’s one thing to talk about contract manufacturing in the far east for this product or that, another thing to see what that actually entails. i’d like to say it makes me want to redouble my efforts to make things easy to assemble, but that’s not always an option. how do you say “sorry” in chinese?

perhaps the best thing i can say about the third pirates of the caribbean movie is that, like the first, it left me wishing that piracy was a valid career choice in the modern world. the second movie elicited considerably more of a 'meh' response, not merely because of the preponderance of disgusting sea creatures. though this most recent movie is considerably more 'serious', insofar as that's possible, the demented sense of humor is back, and most importantly, the actors seem to be enjoying being pirates again. the first half-hour was vividly surreal, yet resolutely silly. it was too bad that the theme of the modern era bringing an end to the age of pirates wasn't put to better use; there are plenty of ways to pick apart the movie, plot threads picked up and dropped, characters killed off without much to do, orlando bloom is a terrible actor, et cetera, et cetera, but really, i have no interest in doing so. after all, what's not to love about a movie where a monkey pulls a gun on a parrot?

we set a pretty simple goal for this year's entry for the 48-hour film project: to make people besides just ourselves laugh. not that making ourselves laugh isn't a noble goal in and of itself, mind you, but in designing something for an audience, you naturally want to satisfy that audience. i'm pretty sure we achieved that goal. we got probably the second-most laughs (next to a movie about a holiday called 'no pants day' which was hilarious. perhaps funnier is the fact that when i searched for the movie this morning on the usual places, i found that there really is a no pants day and it really was may 4th!), and the movie really looked pretty good on the big screen. some of the editing stuff that i really hated didn't actually turn out quite as bad as i remembered, and a lot of the little details came across well (as in, the audience noticed them). it was a really good time in general, and thinking back on the stuff we learned this year and last year, we'll come back strong next year, too.

the other night, i watched jesus camp, which arrived from netflix. later that night, i caught the end of dawn of the dead (the remake, which isn't bad). made for an oddly appropriate double-feature. the former gives you pretty much everything you could ask for in a freaky-bible-thumper movie. there are people speaking in tongues, five minutes into it. you've got your megachurches, you've got your creationism propaganda videos. you've got the freaky rat-tailed kid who resembles bart in that episode of the simpsons where he claims an ability to heal people (except, you know, not funny). for me, the most disturbing part was when they show that little girl walking up to random strangers and trying to convert them. the idea that not only were these kids trained to spout such inane babblings at people but exhorted to bring in everyone they knew wasn't anything new, but the vision of how systematic was was disturbing; i mean, even if half the kids succeed at bringing in just one more person, it still grows pretty fast. and while the things they teach these kids do make them dumber, preparing them poorly for the real world, it makes you wonder about the other, more virulent teachings sometimes associated with these places. westerners always marvel about cultures that glorify things like suicide bombing, and take a patronizing view of such things, but really, when we see these kids indoctrinated into thinking that they're some kind of warriors for jesus, dressed up in camouflage, natch, how far off are we? one hopes that the ignominious end of the bush administration foretells an ebb in these idiots' influence, but there's a lot of 'em. they're loud and they like to complain that they're oppressed. and they, like the walking dead, are hungry for brains.

lately, the netflix queue has been mostly populated with fare that is, well, not intellectually stimulating, but mildly amusing, and because i can, i'm going to write about that today.

vanilla sky: well, i guess this was mildly thought-provoking. i kinda liked it, and it looked great, but it also seemed to be really bending over backwards to 'blow your mind' or some other back-of-the-dvd-case term, and as such it kinda diminished the revelation of the end. besides which, they really telegraphed the ending the entire way through. and furthermore, i couldn't help but be reminded of futurama and poor ted williams. the shit of it is, when all is said and done, not too much really happens, over a longish movie. soundtrack is good, though.

the fast and the furious: now here's a movie that built careers on its exceeding of low expectations. and as a result, we had to sit through an entire year of the film industry assuming we all somehow wanted everything to be like this movie, and everything to have vin diesel in it. notwithstanding the cool 'max power' name, he doesn't do much for me. he has a couple of good lines in this movie, but they're far outweighed by the ones that land with a thud. and as a result, we had to hear how 'xxx' was going to out-007 james bond, or whatever. horse pucky, i say. this movie was, uh, worth a netflix rental. and not an entire waste of its 90-minute running time (a nice car chase is never a bad thing). and paul walker? he couldn't even do justice to the material in the skulls. the bt songs on the soundtrack are decent, though.

enigma: oh, okay, here's another non-dumb one. this was a good movie. i liked the fact that it did a fine job of minimizing the dumbing-down of the cryptography that was described. not only that, but they actually took some steps to shed some light on the process, explaining why it wasn't enough to simply have the machine. well-acted and engrossing, not anything big or important, but a damn good way to waste 2 hours. incidentally, it reminded me a lot of a bond movie, but then i noticed that the score was by a 007 veteran.

orange county: forgettable. tom hanks' kid has an amazing resemblance to the young, funny tom hanks. i miss that tom hanks. dragnet. big. splash. the underrated classic, the burbs.

sorority boys: i laughed. really, that's about all one can ask for out of a movie such as this. it's all been done before, but it was nevertheless funny, so, uh, yeah. good enough. i will save myself the trouble of copying and pasting this paragraph, and just say van wilder was about the same thing. a decent waste of time, by my admittedly low standards for movies like this. crap, but good crap.

the count of monte cristo: a pretty decent swashbuckler, good swordfights and stuff. it looks real nice, too. the passage of time in it is kinda hard to swallow, but that's a function of the source material, so i guess can't be helped.

abraxas, guardian of the universe: too horrible for words. jesse ventura should stick to politics, although he was okay in that one episode of the x-files.

they saved hitler's brain: ugh. it's a bad sign when the title is the most amusing thing about the movie.

bad taste: sucked. impressively gross, but just too long, too boring. i have no idea why having this on his resume helped peter jackson get the whole lord of the rings job. everything that was so good about those movies (well, at least fellowship), sucked about this, and this was supposed to be a comedy.

america's sweethearts: cute, but not funny. and it's a sad thing when billy crystal has to resort to dogs+'nads jokes. honestly, though, this is the first movie i've seen where i can totally get the whole julia roberts thing. pretty much any other movie, she never seemed like anything special, but she's ok in this. it's still pretty unremarkable though. it might've been a better movie if they didn't seemingly cut out an important 5 minutes around the 2/3 point.

the italian job: not to encourage remakes, but this was pretty decent. it had a good car chase or two, and the ongoing 'napster' gag was reasonably amusing. marky mark is not horrible, but edward norton totally seemed to phone it in. i think it's kinda amusing how much screen time the los angeles subway system seems to get (think speed and earthquake and volcano among others), given the fact that it's most famous for not being used.

so, am i the only one who repeatedly winds up with fullscreen copies of dvds that i have to go exchange for the proper ones? this is like, the third or fourth time i've done this. is there really such a market for the crappy pan & scan versions that they keep popping up everywhere? and since they're filling 2-3 discs with crap already, why not just cram it all on there? other discs, even ones with bonus stuff, seem to manage. and, if there's no other recourse, and they absolutely must make separate packaged versions of the letterboxed and fullscreen versions, could they please make the differentiating text on the package somewhat more conspicuous than what it typically is, small text at the top or bottom that i seem to repeatedly filter out as irrelevant billing of the 'super-special-unrated-extra-outtakes-fucking-greedo-shoots-first-edition.'

i went to see the hulk tonight. let me just say that the latest round of commercials for it, touting it as some kind of artistic triumph are utter horseshit. bantha pudu. seriously. now, that's not to say it's a total loss, more that it, like its protagonist, has a totally split personality. half crowd-pleasing ass-kicker, half fable about the sins of a father being visited upon his son. it's that last part that's been being flogged in an effort to convince people this is a worthy followup to crouching tiger, hidden dragon. and it's that last part where the thing just doesn't work. the first part of the movie tedious, but at least seems to be going somewhere. the middle part, with the big chase is superb, i mean, really good. and the last 20 minutes just plain sucks. a freaking mess. what's more frustrating is how good the good parts are, which makes the bad parts that much more annoying. a couple of the fight scenes are incoherent (you'll know which ones), and way the hell too dark. the resolution at the end of the movie is tacked on, done too quickly, and, agh, i can't explain any further without spoiling it, but it really could've been saved for the inevitable sequel. and then there's the so-called 24-style editing. which, as others have pointed out, really dates back to the andromeda strain, but anyway, what it refers to is multiple images onscreen at once, a deluge of information. 24 uses it to excellent effect, to convey the massive amount of information on the screen simultaneously necessary for the format; it doesn't always happen to be aesthetically pleasing, but really, that's beside the point. with this movie, it's been noted that the intent is to strike a resemblance between the moving frames onscreen and the panels of a comic book. the few times it works, it's way cool. the rest of the time, it's either showy or clunky or both. some of the cuts make george lucas' in the original star wars look subtle. and worst, there's an important scene which winds up looking like the beginning of charlie's angels, as a result.

ugh, that's enough about it. like i said, a mess. there's a lot good to say, too (the hulk himself is truly impressive. despite my better judgement, i believed it; it looks unreal on tv, but on the big screen, he seemed to me to live and breathe.). anyway, that's enough for now...

**Matrix spoilers follow**

so, i saw the matrix reloaded on friday night, and after the commotion of the weekend, i hadn't gotten a chance to write about it. which is not to say that i'm necessarily in a position to do so intelligently yet, mind you, but i suppose i'll try. i've wasted many a spare cycle thinking about this movie (indeed, it kept me awake far too late on friday night, even though it was already 3am). stupid brain doesn't know when to turn off. and really, i'm kinda torn as to what to think.

at first, i really was kinda turned off by the direction the story took, in addition to the structure of the movie, but i think that was just a reaction to the way it veered off from what the end of the first promised. now, though, after pondering it, i am impressed and intrigued by the potential directions that the whole thing could go, but yet somewhat disappointed in the overall movie itself. in a nutshell, the first movie was wicked fun, a great ride with enough meat on the story to satisfactorily chew on for a bit. this one, for better or for worse, kinda feels like work; a rewarding and worthwhile effort, but also not the kind of thing you'll drop in the dvd player on a random afternoon. nearer to babylon 5 than to star trek (not to insult the first movie by comparing it to the dead, beaten corpse that is star trek).

anyway, i still need to see it several more times, i think, so any kind of cohesive commentary will have to wait, but here's a few talking points:

the bad:

--the end of the chocolate scene. you know what i'm talking about. we got the point, then they had to show it to us in green and black. as gratuitous as the pudu jokes in the phantom menace or the dwarf-tossing joke's return in the two towers.

--morpheus's speech. laurence fishburne lost some of his mystique by giving that speech. as cool as his speaking voice is, his shouting voice is almost equally comical, which made his speech at the beginning pretty useless. the content was predictable anyway.

--the first 45 minutes, or, holiday in zion. lots of talking that set up precious little about the plot that was to follow. councils and committees and stuff like that. i don't remember because it didn't really matter to the plot.

--the rave scene. went on a bit too long. i actually don't have much of a problem with it, but others certainly have seemd to. the sweaty bodies make a point, elegantly, even, but like the rest of the opening act, it's just tedious.

--abandonment of the end of the first movie. at the end of the first movie, neo was going to show the world exactly what was going on by flagrantly defying the matrix' rules. what happened to that plan? (explained better here)

--if morpheus is such a fringe figure in zion, why was smith & co. so hot to get him in particular the first movie.

--the cutting of the scene where they plan their infiltrations. scenes inside and outside the matrix, cross-cut with the plans they speak of actually happening (and failing). confusing as hell.

--urgency. as in the fights mostly lacked it. the only one that delivered was the highway scene, which, coincidentally enough, was missing neo. remember exactly how awesome it was when neo turned and fought smith at the end of the first? how it was so clear he was fighting for his life and had chosen to do so? he lost his fear, and we lost that sense of desperation. the fights in the playground and the place with the swords and at the beginning with the other non-smith agents were also peripheral actions with no real bearing on the plot. so, regardless of how cool they were (they were), the payoff for all that thinky-ness is diminished, because the action is just a side dish, for the most part.

--the music. where was it, and why the fuck was dave matthews in the credits? where's the propellerheads? hell, i'd've been glad to hear rage against the machine (dislike them, but they are perfect for the end of the first movie). nothing much to hear, really. sad.

the good:

--the plot. it's interesting as hell. certainly has given me a lot to waste my time thinking about. as evidenced by voluminous forum posts on slashdot and the macnn forums, it's not just me. is neo indeed just the feedback loop on a closed system (cool!)? did his choice at the end even matter (given the architect's statement of irrelevance)? is there a matrix within a matrix (mr. reeves has apparently said no), is zion part of the matrix (a subtle semantic difference, i guess), or has he acquired truly special real-world powers (a lame thought, imho)? were all the other special people we've met thus far former iterations of the one from previous matrices? is the architect truly hiding in the john hancock tower, and why did i get arrested for sneaking in wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses? did smith copy himself into a human brain, or did he merely escape from the matrix program out into a higher-level program? wouldn't his ability to copy himself support the second-matrix theory in addition to neo's ability to sense the machines? is neo comatose because he's woken up in this yet as-determined really real world? and so on. goodness knows that's not an all-inclusive list of questions, but i don't know when i've been so happy to have a movie give more questions than answers...

--the highway chase. using real cars (in a wonderful future where everyone drives GM products!) on a real highway makes a real difference. don't use CG for stuff that can be done in real life. good. the results show, and that sense of speed has not been properly captured on film since return of the jedi. about the only disappointment was that the agent-jumping-on-car shot would have taken people's breath away if it hadn't been given away in the trailer.

--the neo vs. smiths fight. fun, but too long, and, as i mentioned before, irrelevant. it's a jackie chan-style good time, though.

--the return of the spoon. cute.

--the discussion with the architect... very cool. sets up a lot of the stuff mentioned above, but the handling of it is cool. it simultaneously punches you in the gut by pointing out that the heroic exploits against the machines have all been planned for, while still making it clear that neo is a new and different kind of emergent behavior in the program.

--link. some people complained about him; i rather like him.

ah, damn, too much to talk about. there's a good chance i could change my mind about half of this after seeing it again, but it's kinda weird to be so frustrated both in a good way and a bad way by a movie...

i always had thought it a good idea to someday compile a list of movies with truly exemplary displays of the middle finger. flipping someone off can be a powerful statement indeed, and if artfully done, adds much to the movie. there, now doesn't this sound like an insipid introduction to some award presentation? anyway, i have to say that after having seen X2 last night, it has a fine addition to the pantheon of celluloid fuck-yous. and it was a pretty good movie, to boot. it wasn't quite as ass-kickingly good as i'd expected, though, to be honest. and maybe i lose something (yet again) by not being as literate as i should be. but it was still pretty darn good. (don't read further if you've not seen the movie)

i used to think of myself as a fairly literate individual, but in the past years, i find myself completely lacking in knowledge of a lot of things that wind up in pop-culture. like the lord of the rings trilogy, and the comic-book phenomenon, namely. but anyway, what i'm getting at is that the x-men movies have been very kind to the underinformed, with the truly lush characterizations of their inhabitants. they seem to make every effort to gently point out a character's past history, not through a clumsy flashback to an origin story, but a little at a time. if anything, this movie had an excess of character development, i'd say, but not in a bad way--when can you say that about a summer blockbuster?

the opening scene was profoundly cool, as was the big fight scene at the school. this movie was considerably less shy about spilling blood, too. magneto's escape from his prison was very cool. some of the other scenes kinda left me cold; the fighter plane scene wasn't anything special, in particular; the whole fight with wolverine and the she-wolverine (deathstrike, i think) was very darth-maul-esque, given that everybody knew it would be cool, she's ultra-badass, and has walked around being so for the entire film, and this is her only purpose, but at the end of all that, does it have any significance to the plot? a little, since wolverine winds up killing someone just like him. anyway, the other thing that kind bugged me was the repeated uselessness of professor xavier--isn't this two movies now that he's been something of a liability? and the other thing was the plot of it. i liked where they were going with the first 10 minutes, but given the whole mutant-attacks-president situation, the reaction of the general public was very, very underplayed, save for the little incident at bobby's parents' house; after that, the significance of the events in the movie to the world at large is not sufficiently illustrated, making the payoff at the end somewhat lesser, imho.

anyway, i'd have to say, it's a damn good movie, and is very immersive, but perhaps it wasn't quite as involving as it might have been. and damn, i wish i was blue and could appear and disappear at will...